User blog:Willbachbakal/Custom Patch Notes/Champions/Mages
Mages are a staple of many videogame genres and have very well-defined strengths and weaknesses throughout: they have powerful spells, they can often control their enemies and keep them at bay, and they tend to be innately fragile and weak in direct combat. With that said, League of Legends has pushed the envelope on many mages, allowing them to develop into new and unexplored gameplay and thematic fantasies, while expanding on what it means to be a mage. On the flipside, Riot's also been sticking to a few mage tropes I think could be played with a little more, and occasionally been too conservative on the treatment they gave to some older mages. The overarching goals for the mage changes below are the following: Less Contrived Stats= While every role tends to be guided a little bit too forcefully towards certain stats sometimes, this is particularly true of mages: not only are most mages expected to max out on cooldown reduction and mana sustain, along with AP, those options don't always feel appropriate either. Some mages might not even need that much CDR, or even mana as a resource, but are stuck with those expectations for the sake of conforming to general trends and itemization. While most mages should definitely still run on similar stats, some could afford to be a bit different, whether it be by fully committing to an alternate build or using a different, non-mana resource more appropriate for their playstyle. |-| More Varied Playstyles= Typically, mages are expected to have a core ability combo and mainly play around it. While even that has a ton of potential for variation, often mages have been a bit too beholden to that trope, among many others. Some mages have significantly different playstyles from others, and as such may want to do radically different things, like use lots of basic attacks (e.g. or ) or even launch themselves gleefully into the enemy team (basically ). Currently, though, they can't really do that as well as they'd want to, which has homogenized their playstyles somewhat and neutered some of their most interesting features. Many mages could afford to step even more outside the box and take their unique traits up to 11, which would also help make them stand out in an environment saturated with many overlapping contributions. Aurelion Sol= ; Niche: The Center of Attention * This is far more of a fanciful "here is my take on this champion" set of changes than a truly serious rework, considering this was written before even Aurelion Sol's release and his kit both looks and feels extremely well-designed. Part of these changes likely came from a excessive willingness to streamline, which is already not a big task considering the simplicity of his base kit, but also because of some minor regrets coming from the main gameplay designer himself: when discussing his champion, Rabid Llama admitted that his somewhat underwhelming ultimate was added mainly for functionality in place of a potentially far more awe-inspiring, though power-hungry effect, and mentioned his not-too-relevant mana costs as if they were more of an afterthought than a conscious design decision. The goal of these changes is to move bits of his kit around for the sake of efficiency, focusing completely on his star damage, to make him properly manaless, since his passive and E gameplay make him a champion that doesn't really need to run on a resource, and to give him a suitably flashy ultimate, though one that would be appropriate for his gameplay and power budget. * Stats: ** Is now a manaless champion. ** No longer uses basic attacks. *** Attack damage, attack speed and basic attack range removed (set to 0). * : ** Stars now only activate when Aurelion Sol initiates a command to attack or activates , and persist thereafter until he . *** Abilities that Aurelion Sol now also disable his stars for the duration. ** Damage increased to level)}} (2% level)}}% AP)}} from (1% level)}}% AP)}}. ** Since the stars' damage is always above 25, they no longer need to execute minions . * : ** Damage removed. ** Bonus movement speed removed. ** Travel speed is now based on Aurelion Sol's movement speed, slowing down the further the star core is from him. ** Initial projectile size reduced. *** Projectile is now exhaled from Aurelion Sol's breath. * : ** Passive removed. ** Cooldown increased to from . ** Active no longer increases damage. ** Automatically ends after not damaging an enemy champion within the past seconds. * : ** Escape Velocity is now displayed in Aurelion Sol's resource bar. * : ** Renamed to Supernova. ** Cooldown increased to from ** Reworked: Aurelion Sol charges himself with cosmic energy over the next 4 seconds, emanating a glow so bright he can be anywhere on the map. At the end of the duration, upon recasting the ability or upon its cancellation, Aurelion Sol releases all of the accumulated energy in an explosive burst, dealing up to magic damage, and a minimum of damage, to all enemies within the Outer Rim, to the edge, and them by , decaying over 1 second plus every second spent charging. |-| Azir= ; Niche: The Army Commander * Azir's been struggling a lot recently: at his core, he's intended to be an AP autoattacking hypercarry mage, yet some of his power keeps bleeding into poke and excessive safety, making him a powerful lane bully with an overbearing early game against many champions. He's a tremendously popular pick in competitive play, but often for the wrong reasons (i.e. for his Q poke, rather than his core autoattacking fantasy), and the nerfs that target that kind of power inevitably end up making him even weaker in the hands of all but the most dedicated players. The goal of these changes is to make a more radical change to his damage output, focusing it exclusively on his Sand Soldiers while paring off and concentrating the power on his other abilities down to their core functions (Q is to reposition soldiers, E is to reposition Azir, etc.). The end result should be a champion who'd be much more at ease at what he does best, with potentially better (and new) item synergy and use of riskier strats (Shurima Shuffle FTW), while also having more pronounced weaknesses and less abuse potential. * Stats: ** Base attack speed increased to 0.694 from 0.625. ** Attack speed growth increased to 4% from . ** No longer uses basic attacks. *** Attack damage and attack range removed (set to 0). * ** Damage removed. ** Now only commands the Sand Soldier closest to the target to dash. ** Cooldown now applies per Sand Soldier, and not to the ability itself. ** strength changed to from 25% at all ranks. ** Enemies by Conquering Sands now receive an immunity period whose duration is equal to the soldier's cooldown, during which they cannot be affected by Conquering Sands again. * ** Now has six ranks, with Azir starting the game with one rank in the ability. ** removed. ** Mana cost removed. ** Cast range increased to 500 from 450. ** Cooldown increased to from . ** Cooldown in-between soldier casts removed. ** Damage changed to level)}} level)}}% AP)}} from . ** Enemies can only be damaged by one Sand Soldier per basic attack. ** Each Sand Soldier applies on-hit, on-attack and spell effects. *** Stacking per-attack effects still only count each basic attack as one instance, even if multiple soldiers are attacking, and life steal effects provide no healing. ** If Azir has no Sand Soldiers active, casting Arise! does not require or consume a charge. ** Sacrificing a Sand Soldier on a turret no longer inflicts specific magic damage, but instead causes them to attack it once. ** Sand Soldiers last indefinitely, and only disintegrate after seconds of not dealing damage. * ** Range restriction removed. ** Damage removed. ** Shield removed. ** Cooldown changed to from . ** Azir now stops immediately behind enemy champions who interrupt his dash, rather than in front of them. * ** Damage removed. ** Bonus movement speed removed. ** Duration increased to 7 at all ranks from . |-| Heimerdinger= ;Niche: The Base Builder * A long time ago, Heimerdinger was one of the most unsuccessful champions in the game, with a kit that was impossible to balance and reduced him to a joke champion. While his rework completely revolutionized his kit, making it truly fun to use, it didn't fully address some of his old problems, namely his oppressiveness relative to many champions and his overall viability: Heimerdinger's still a pubstomper, one who can completely dominate the laning phase just by sitting around and plonking turrets non-stop, but he's also been relegated to that role, and so has remained out of any sort of competitive setting, where he falls apart against coordinated dives. One way of addressing this would be to give him more late-game autonomy, where the only means of dealing with a pushing Heimerdinger would be to break down his base before attacking him (going for him directly and ignoring his defenses should incur casualties). To complement this, though, he also needs to have his laning patterns made more interactive: right now, he wins by attrition, forcing his opponent to play a losing game where he can poke safely and regen most incoming damage, while they get few opportunities to do much in return unless they can easily take down his turrets. An answer to both could take the form of a unique resource system, which would allow Heimerdinger to be even stronger when fully stocked in a well set-up base, while also forcing him to leave the safety of his turrets to gather supplies. The goal of these changes (aside from a moderate power shift away from lane) is to reinforce Heimerdinger's base-building niche and give him the options he needs to adapt to hard focus and faster-paced late games, while also forcing windows of vulnerability upon him in order to prevent him from just winning by default in stand-offs. Another goal that developed later was to concentrate his ult into something much more interesting: UPGRADE!!! is a "basic ability plus" ultimate in a game that already has Karma and LeBlanc, and in almost every case R + Q trumps both other choices. Additionally, having massive burst and massive crowd control doesn't fit into Heimerdinger's fantasy or gameplay niche all that well, so the changes further below take his base-building, turret-centric playstyle up to 11 and place the focus squarely on his big turret. * Stats: ** Base health regeneration reduced to 5 from . ** Health regeneration growth reduced to from . ** Is now manaless, and uses a unique resource (see below). * ** Renamed to Endless Discovery. ** Reworked: Heimerdinger uses Spare Parts to craft his inventions, and can hold up to , displayed in his resource bar. Each basic ability costs 1 Spare Part to use, and while Heimerdinger cannot regenerate Spare Parts of his own outside of the fountain, he can make them from resource nodes on the map: whenever Heimerdinger is lacking Spare Parts, an invisible node periodically spawns near him, remaining for a moderate duration, and the D.I.N.G.R. lights up to indicate its presence, beeping faster the closer he is to it. Upon getting close enough to the node, it becomes visible and the D.I.N.G.R. picks it up automatically, granting Heimerdinger a Spare Part and disabling node generation around that area for a longer period. *** Node placement is semi-random and slightly skewed towards riskier locations (e.g. brush, portions of the lane closer to the enemy, neutral or enemy side of the jungle). *** Additionally, large enemies drop a spare part upon dying. * ** Attack range increased to 550 from 525. ** Spare part storage removed (moved to ). ** Cooldown removed. ** Charge per second removed. ** Turrets now generate 10% charge per attack across all levels, from . ** Damage per attack changed to per level|11.5% to 20%}}) AP)}} from . ** Beam damage changed to per level|34.5% to 60%}} AP}}}} from . ** Turrets now deactivate immediately upon Heimerdinger's death or him leaving their leash range. ** Heimerdinger can use H-28G Evolution Turret on a nearby turret that's been deployed for 10 seconds or more to pick it up, destroy it and generate 1 Spare Part. ** Turrets no longer have resistances, and instead have 6 health, taking modified incoming damage: *** 1 damage from minions, monsters and inhibitor and base turrets. *** 2 damage from ranged champion basic attacks. *** 3 damage from damaging spells, melee champion basic attacks, outer and inner turrets and large monsters. *** 6 damage from Smite and effects that imitate it (e.g. ). * ** Cooldown reduced to 5 from 11. ** Damage changed to AP)}} from . ** Damage per additional rocket increased to 25% from 20%. *** Total damage reduced to from . * ** Cooldown reduced to 10 at all ranks from . ** Base damage reduced to from . ** Range increased to 1100 from 925. ** Radius reduced to 200 from 210. ** Now all enemies hit for seconds, from seconds against enemies in the epicenter. * ** Renamed to Ultimate Creation. ** Cooldown removed. ** Reworked: Heimerdinger deploys a massive turret and places himself in inside it. *** The turret has health and follows the same rules for damage and crowd control as any . *** Left-clicking while inside the turret fires large energy projectiles in the target direction that detonate upon impact with an enemy, dealing magic damage in an area and enemies hit by 25% for 1 second, at a maximum rate of attacks per second. **** Projectiles count as spells, rather than basic attacks, and so apply spell effects, but not on-hit effects, and do not affect structures. **** The turret has a turn speed. *** Reactivating Ultimate Creation while within deployment range of the turret will deconstruct it and save it for future use, keeping its current health levels. **** If someone is occupying the turret, they exit automatically upon its deconstruction. *** Using the turret consumes 1 Spare Part per second, and at 0 spare parts the turret deactivates and kicks out its user. *** Right-clicking to move exits the turret, but leaves it out, albeit inactive. Any allied champion can move to the inactive turret to enter, place themselves in and control it, consuming Heimerdinger's Spare Parts every second as they do so. *** Collecting a Spare Part heals the turret for 2 health, tripled if Heimerdinger is full on Spare Parts. *** If the turret is destroyed, it becomes usable again within a static 100 seconds or upon restoring its health to full, whichever comes first. |-| Karthus= ;Niche: The Suicide Mage * A few seasons ago, back when immobile mages completely ruled the mid lane, Karthus was one of the most popular champions around, offering tremendous global influence on top of safe overall laning, and even occasionally haunted the jungle, using its safety and his constant damage to power through camps and invade lanes. Times have changed, though, and many of the pillars responsible for the Deathsinger's success have crumbled: the prominence of assassins and mobile champions have made his laning experience so harrowing that people often refuse to play him for his lane counters; the increased difficulty of the jungle and removal of the Magus enchantment have made his early jungle clears almost impossible to achieve; his infamous Teleport + Revive combo has been undone by the removal of the latter spell, and his uniqueness as an AP hypercarry has been eclipsed by the likes of and , who outperform him while carrying more overall safety. More importantly, though, the cracks in his kit are starting to show: as a squishy mage, Karthus needs to dive his targets at extremely close ranges and thereby sacrifice his life, but the massive risk he takes often has an insufficient payoff due to the inherent cost of dying. The goal of these changes is to reinforce and better support that identity: not only should Karthus feel comfortable when acting suicidal, he should be truly rewarded for it, and his abilities should fully revolve around enabling and enacting death upon his enemies. * Stats ** Health growth reduced to 65 from 75. ** Base movement speed reduced to 325 from 335. * ** Duration reduced to 5 from 7. ** No longer removes the mana costs to Karthus's abilities. ** No longer automatically toggles on. ** If Karthus kills an enemy champion or epic monster during Death Defied, he reforms his body, resurrecting at maximum health}} and . ** Only counts Karthus's death once Death Defied expires without him resurrecting. * ** Mana cost reduced to 20 at all ranks from . * ** Renamed to Veil of Mortality. ** Mana cost reduced to 70 from 100. ** Cooldown reduced to from 18 at all ranks. ** Wall now deploys after a -second delay, rather than instantly. ** duration reduced to 2 from 5. ** only decays over the last second, and targets affected by Veil of Mortality prior to that have the decay delayed by 1 second every time they take champion damage, up to a maximum total duration of 5 seconds. *** This means that, if a target gets continuously damaged over that duration, the remains unmitigated for 4 seconds and decays over the last second. ** strength reduced to from . ** No longer reduces affected targets' . ** Now halves affected targets' , converting the other half into grey health which consumes itself to heal the victim over the course of the decay. *** This does not apply to epic monsters. * ** Range reduced to 300 from 425. ** Mana cost per second reduced to 30 at all ranks from . ** Toggle off effect removed. ** Damage changed to per half second from per second. ** Taking down an enemy with Defile now permanently increases its range by 1, increased to 5 against enemy champions, large minions and monsters, up to a maximum of 200 bonus range (500 total range). * ** Mana cost reduced to 100 from . ** Cooldown reduced to from . ** Active reworked: Karthus channels for 3 seconds and, upon completing his channel, kills every enemy champion on the map below . *** Is affected by the same rules as the current Requiem, meaning it is negated by untargetability and invulnerability, though unlike the current ultimate, it does not factor in shields. *** All targets above the threshold are unaffected, though only if they are above the threshold when the channel completes. *** While Karthus is channeling, the threshold becomes visible to all enemy champions. ** Karthus's voice can now be heard globally as he channels. |-| Orianna= ;Niche: The Object Manipulator * Once a mainstay in the League scene, Orianna's quietly winded down to a lower-key presence, occasionally appearing as a core motor to wombo-combo comps or a supportive utility mage. As a champion with one of the most unique flows and ability sets in the game, Orianna stands out for her unique inputs, and her outputs can be pretty amazing too (her ultimate can almost single-handedly determine the outcome of a fight), but at the same time her baseline kit has aged a little: her passive, which guarantees amazing last-hitting and trading, is often left out for her safer poke playstyle, and she suffers from a tiny bit of invisible power in the form of her E passive. As her kit is healthy and really fun overall, the goal of these changes is not to fundamentally change her playstyle, but rather to make her kit mesh with itself even better and flow more smoothly at all stages of the game, with a particular focus on better fitting in her passive, using a souped-up critical hit system (every third consecutive basic attack or spell on a target would count as a critical strike, which would then be modified by items and abilities). * Stats ** All of Orianna's abilities can now also be used when the ball is in motion through or . * ** Damage increased to 18 + (4 Orianna's level) from . ** Damage increase on consecutive attacks removed. ** Now only applies on Orianna's 3 next basic attacks, refilling after either 9 seconds or scoring a critical strike against an enemy champion or large monster. * ** Mana cost increased to 60 from 50. * ** Mana cost changed to 60 at all ranks from . ** Damage reduced to from . ** Movement speed modifier strength increased to from . ** Movement speed modifier no longer applies outside the zone. ** Movement speed is now centered around the Ball, rather than a static location. * ** Resistance passive removed. ** Damage AP ratio increased to from . ** Shield strength increased to from . ** Shield duration reduced to 3 from 4. * ** Mana cost reduced to 100 at all ranks from . ** Cooldown reduced to from . ** Damage increased to from . ** Delay increased to 1 from . ** While Command: Shockwave is in effect, the Ball no longer returns to Orianna if out of range. 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